Here I Lay
by Shi-Toyu
Summary: Loki visits the place where he was once buried. Companion piece to zombified419's Last Kiss. FrostIron.


Here I Lay

"I never thought I'd say this, but it turns out SHIELD's obsession with monitoring your movements is actually a good thing."

Loki felt something settle inside him at the sound of Anthony's voice, but he couldn't tear his eyes away to look at his lover. Soft footfalls let him follow the mortal's trek across the grass until they stood side by side.

"When Fury first told me this was where you'd disappeared to, I thought it was a sick joke. I almost punched him before Coulson backed him up…Why?"

There was a long pause before Loki managed to speak. It was like standing there had stolen his very breath away.

"I wondered, from time to time, what you might have done. I knew no one else would bother."

One hand reached out to trail fingertips across the pale marble of his tomb. It was bathed in the colors of the slowly setting sun. Loki marveled at the beauty of the stone and the mastery of its workmanship. The lilies carved into the tomb caused his heart to clench in his chest.

"Even from that first moment, I knew you were different. I just became more and more attached as time went on. Losing you…It nearly destroyed me."

Loki's hand left the marble to instead reach for the mortal beside him. His fingers skimmed along Anthony's spine until he could wrap them loosely around the back of his neck. Loki rubbed his thumb back and forth through the tiny hairs there that felt like feather down.

"For a while," Anthony continued when the god remained silent, "This was all that kept me from falling into a bottle and drowning myself there. You were buried pretty quick. I mean, you had to be. This was still here, though. I worked on it for weeks, took as long as I possibly could."

Every muscle in Loki's body froze. For the first time, he managed to tear his eyes away from his supposedly final resting place and focus on the reason he had come back.

"You made this?"

Anthony was trembling slightly, not enough for it to be visible but enough that Loki could feel it. It seemed that even just the memory of the time following Loki's supposed death caused the man more pain than Loki would ever wish upon him. To be fair, he'd only known of Loki's survival for barely a month.

"I wouldn't trust it to anyone else. You were too important."

Loki's eyelids fluttered shut and he found it briefly hard to breath.

"I cannot apologize enough, Anthony. If there had been any way I could have stayed…"

"But there wasn't. You didn't make the decision to go."

The mortal's arm snuck around Loki's waist, pulling himself just a bit closer. Loki used his grip on the other's neck to guide Anthony into his chest so both of the god's arms could wrap around him. Anthony had grown a bit in the time they had been apart, but not by much. They still slotted together perfectly, like they'd been made for each other.

"I wouldn't ever make that choice. I will never leave you again."

"When I came out of the lab and couldn't find you, I was afraid you'd been taken away again. Maybe you'd been exonerated here, but what if Odin had decided you needed to be punished? JARVIS said you'd left the tower and I just…I can't lose you again."

Even muffled as it was by Loki's chest, Anthony's voice sounded strained. It pained Loki to hear a man who possessed such strength brought so low.

"It was not my intention to cause you distress. I just wasn't sure if you would be okay with me coming here."

Anthony huffed out a single laugh, but it didn't sound like he was very amused.

"I can understand the desire, I guess. I mean, I'd probably want to know, too."

Loki hummed.

"I should have let you know before I left, or at least left a message with JARVIS. It was inconsiderate of me."

There was a long stretch of silence between them as the sun finished setting. Technically, the cemetery closed at sundown, but it wasn't like anyone was going to actually try and kick them out. No groundskeeper got paid enough to go up against both Tony Stark and a Norse god.

"Did you ever come visit me?" Loki asked.

"All the time, at first. Too often for it to be healthy. It took Pepper, Rhodey, and Obie all working together to get me to stop. It wasn't my proudest time and after the work was done…" He twisted around in Loki's arms until they were both facing the god's grave. "Well, I didn't exactly have an excuse to spend all my time here. After that I only came once a year, on the day we met. I only ever missed it once."

Loki knew he had no right to feel hurt, but he couldn't help the curl of dark emotion in his chest.

"What happened?"

He knew that there would be a reason. For all he'd lost faith in those he'd always considered his loved ones, he didn't feel a moment of doubt for Anthony's devotion. There wasn't any question. He just wanted to know, to understand what could have kept Anthony away.

"Afghanistan. The Ten Rings didn't seem overly open to the idea of letting me take a quick trip back to the US."

He shrugged, but Loki knew what that time meant to his lover. The god's arms tightened around the most precious person in his life.

"They are lucky to have already suffered your wrath; else they would be facing mine."

He nudged Anthony's head to the side with his chin so he could lay a kiss upon the mortal's cheek. In the past month, he had learned a lot about the things Anthony had been through in his absence. Loki hated it. He couldn't help but think that if he had only just been there, he could have prevented it.

When his punishment had ended and he'd been called back to Asgard, he'd had every intention to turn right around and head back to Midgard, to Anthony. It seemed like such an easy decision. Thor would pout and whine, but Loki would no longer be dragged along on his idiotic adventures. Loki would be free of the ridicule and scorn he faced constantly in his home realm. He would return to Anthony and spend his days happily alongside a mortal.

Well, it seemed the All-Father was none too pleased to discover how his plans of punishing Loki had backfired. The god had been cast down to Midgard to learn his lesson and instead had spent it with a mortal, growing soft and complacent. Apparently Loki's happiness had meant little in the eyes of his supposed father. He was forbidden to return to the other realm and it was only years later, when he had discovered his true heritage, that Loki realized that being on Midgard put him too far away for Odin to comfortably control.

To finally make it back to his lover only to discover all of the pain that Anthony had been through had cut Loki deeply. Even though Thor was the sibling most thought of as being more 'champion' material, Loki had always thought of himself as a protector. With Anthony, he had failed in that role quite severely. Moreover, each new trial he learned about served to reinforce just how mortal the man was. There had been so many times where, if things had just gone a little bit differently, Loki would have had nothing to return to.

He knew Tony was mortal, knew what that meant since the first moment when he had accepted that scotch. At the time, he'd been without magic. Even once he figured out how much Anthony meant to him, there was nothing he could do. He'd resolved to set things right upon his return, but so much time had passed and there had been so much going on since the invasion that he hadn't taken any steps in that direction.

Looking at Anthony now, encased in the god's arms and awash in the dying light of the day, he thought that perhaps it was time to head down that road once again. It would take time to gather the necessary ingredients and more time to ensure that the potion was brewed correctly. After all, he was nowhere near fool enough to think Odin would willingly part with an apple for the likes of Loki the Trickster.

"You seem to be thinking about something awfully hard up there."

Loki chuckled, noticing for the first time that Anthony had tipped his head back to return Loki's gaze. He pressed a kiss to the soon not-to-be-mortal's lips despite the slightly awkward angle.

"Simply a project that I should get working on. Come, let us return home."

His arms loosened to release Anthony, but the mortal gripped them tightly to hold them in place. He sought out Loki's eyes and something in his expression seemed borderline desperate.

"You know I love you, Lokes, right?"

The god smiled, leaning in to kiss his lover passionately.

"And I, you. Until the End of Days." he whispered into Anthony's lips.


End file.
